Chapter 23: "Foul Play in Funland"

Kurama, ever the coolheaded demon, was the first to ask a useful question. "I take it you all know this man?" he said with a nod to the person in the demon costume.

The gaijin nodded. The aforementioned old man also nodded, but probably because he had a concussion. Soon he shook his head, though, rheumy eyes focusing as he looked around the foyer. He had a low ponytail of grey hair and piercing black eyes set in a wizened face, but his neck was thick with muscle despite the wrinkles set deeply around his thin mouth. Old dude, sure, but still spry enough to cart around a heavy costumes. Yusuke knew better than to underestimate the elderly and had more than a few scars to show exactly how he'd learned that lesson.

"Yes, we know him," Fred said. "He's Jii-chan, the caretaker of this estate."

Velma said, "We first suspected him when investigating the background of Onigumo Manor."

"He was one of the only people interested in the Manor at all, which made it pretty easy to narrow down our list of suspects," Daphne said.

"That's right," Velma said with a resolute nod. "It was between him, the heiress of the estate, or the CEO of a corporation who wanted to turn this land into a shopping mall."

"Like, Jii-chan's taken care of this place for so long, it's no wonder he wanted it all to himself," Shaggy said, voice muffled since Scooby was still sitting in his arms and blocking, like, half of his face.

Fred nodded in confirmation. "We met the heiress of this estate in town while researching who owned the property, before she went missing. Turns out Sakura-chan wants to bulldoze this old house, turn the place into a nature sanctuary, and donate it to the public."

"But before she could hand over the property to the government, the deed went missing," Daphne said. "And then she went missing, too!"

"Her diary said she was going to come to the Manor and inspect the property, so we followed that clue here," Velma said. "Clues in the house then gave us the evidence we needed to solve the mystery."

"And during their hunt for clues, they found me."

A smooth voice, feminine and airy and thoroughly unfamiliar, uttered that final statement. Yusuke turned at once toward the top of the stairs, where a young woman in a deep purple kimono had materialized like a ghost. She wore her hair in a sleek bun, beautiful face imperious as she gripped the upper banister and stared into the foyer below.

Jii-chan's head jerked over his shoulder when she spoke—but as soon as his gaze met hers, he tore his eyes away and stared at the floor, pulse beating in his clenched jaw.

"Sakura-chan!" Fred said

"Like, zoinks!" Shaggy stared at her with his mouth open. "You found her?!"

"We did!" said Daphne.

"She was in a basement not marked on the house's blueprints," Velma said, "but we were able to find the entrance through some good old detective work."

Sakura nodded, descending the stairs with delicate precision, fingers skimming the railing with every step. "I waited upstairs just as you told me to, but I am sorry, for I could wait no longer. I needed to see this with my own eyes." Said eyes looked as hard as obsidian as she came to stand before the man in the monster costume. He refused to look at her even when she said in a low, urgent voice, "Jii-chan. You were like a father to me, and yet you took me hostage and tried to force me to sign over this—the deed to Onigumo Manor."

Her hand disappeared into her sleeve and pulled forth a scroll of paper. Jii-chan's eyes flashed as he looked up, but he didn't look at Sakura. No—he simply regarded the scroll she proffered with hunger in his eyes, like someone had offered a greedy dog a scrap of meat.

Jii-chan hadn't said a word, but Yusuke had already pegged him as a slimeball.

And what Velma said next only confirmed his opinion. "Jii-chan was the one making people go missing lately," she said. "And by 'go missing', I mean he scared them off with his costume. They left town without checking out of their hotel, which is why people thought they were missing."

"Or, like, eaten by a hungry demon," said Shaggy.

"Reah! Rah remon!" Scooby concurred with a heavy nod.

"We tracked them down and got their eye-witness accounts." Fred crossed his arms and glared at the old man. "They're all at home and safe, if not a little spooked."

"I'm guessing Jii-chan figured that if he could give this place a haunted reputation, he could buy it from Sakura-chan, or and scare off both Sakura-chan and the CEO of that development company," said Daphne.

Velma nodded. "He wanted this place all to himself!"

Jii-chan flinched, teeth gritting as he aimed a red-hot glare at the room at large. "You fools!" he spat in a voice like a sentient boulder. "I didn't want it! I wanted to sell it to that city slicker CEO and become a millionaire!"

Sakura-chan gasped. "Jii-chan! How could you?"

"Bah! How could I not?" He aimed his glare at her with particular venom, like he was trying to melt her into goo with his eyes alone. Hate filled them up like fire, burning and hot. With more of that acid Jii-chan spat, "You're a stupid, spoiled girl who didn't recognize the value of what she'd inherited. I deserved this land, not you!" He turned his sneer toward everyone else. "But I suppose none of that matters now. You gaijin beat me at my own game." Yellowed eyes traveled from one gaijin to the next, spearing each with a burst of contempt. "And I would've gotten away with it, too, if it weren't for you meddling kids, not to mention your stupid d—"

His eyes fixed on Scooby.

He stopped talking mid-word.

For a second, he didn't move.

Then his eyes bugged out of his skull, and he slumped into a dead faint.

Mystery Inc. all gasped, of course, crowding in close to inspect his head and see if the falling chandelier had given him a real concussion (which is should have, to be fair). Their sharp eyes saw a lot of things, Yusuke mused to himself. They'd seen through Jii-chan's disguise. They'd found Sakura in a hidden room. They'd seen through the man's whole scheme as if it were transparent.

But even their sharp eyes couldn't see the imp demon that came crawling out of Jii-chan's slack and unconscious mouth. No, that was only visible to Yusuke and his friends, and as the imp tried to fly off into the night, Yusuke snatched it out of the air and stuffed the wriggling apparition into his pocket.

"—that dog! That dog's not a dog at all!" the imp was screeching. "It's a demon, like me!"

Scooby, still in Shaggy's arms, craned his head over Shaggy's shoulder to look at Yusuke. "Rut ras rhat?" he asked with a curious tilt of his head.

Yusuke shrugged. "Oh. You know." He took the imp out briefly, waiting for Scooby's eyes to widen before he shoved the creature once more from sight. "Just a mosquito, is all."

Scooby covered his mouth with a paw and giggled.

Somewhere in the distance, a laugh-track played—and this time, Yusuke laughed along with it.

NOTES: This just wouldn't be a Scooby episode (er, story) without a chapter where they explain how they solved the mystery, not to mention a kidnapped bystander and the "meddling kids" line… and yes, the culprit was a human in a suit, but Koenma's intel wasn't totally wrong. It was just an imp demon, not an oni!